Happy New Year, baby!

The new year was only two hours old when Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale welcomed Broward County’s first baby of 2019.

Matthew Torres was born at the facility’s Salah Foundation Children’s Hospital at 1:56 a.m. to a beaming Jennifer Zuluaga.

“I started the contractions about 10 o’clock, by 12 I was here at the hospital because it was so painful,” she said. “He just came about an hour later. It was really quick.”

Matthew weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces at birth.

Just five minutes later, Melissa Hodge of Parkland gave birth to Callie Noelle Hodge at West Boca Medical Center, becoming Palm Beach County’s first birth of 2019. She weighs 5 pounds, 11 ounces.

“She’s a good, healthy baby girl,” said her mom, 29, a senior executive assistant in advertising sales at the South Florida SunSentinel. Callie’s father, William, 30, is a personal trainer.

South Florida’s hospitals relish a friendly competition every year to announce their county’s first baby. It’s good publicity for the maternity wards, and new parents generally bask in the attention and congratulations.

Although Broward and Palm Beach County’s first babies came in the wee hours of the New Year, the tri-county area’s first baby of 2019 appears to have been born at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, which reported its first birth of the year at 12:05 a.m.

The baby boy, Aryah Parreiras, was born to Gabriela Herrera and Gabriel Parreiras. He weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

WEST BOCA MEDICAL CENTER/COURTESY Callie Noelle Hodge was born at 2:01 a.m. New Year’s Day. Proud parents are Melissa and William Hodge of Parkland.

CARLINE JEAN/SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL Matthew Torres, an 8 pounds, 2 ounces baby boy is the first baby born in 2019 at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.